Liz Longley gets heavy on 'Weightless'

Liz Longley's songs unleash a powerful range of emotions, to the point where her most personal lyrics have brought audiences to tears.

A 2010 graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Longley has induced such a reaction when she performs “Unraveling.” That heart-wrenching ballad about her late grandmother's late-in-life lapse into dementia has caused many listeners to dab at their eyes.

Among the lines that strike a chord:

“She looks in my eyes and asks me my name

“And every five minutes I tell her the same.”

“I bawled my eyes out through the whole writing process,” Longley, 30, said by phone from her adopted home in Nashville. “It just felt so heavy and I had every intention of keeping it to myself. It felt like a journal entry, like it didn't need to be shared with the world. A long time went by until I had the courage to share it. And I'm really glad I did. There's something therapeutic about feeling like you're not alone in what you're going through.

“There are some sniffles, for sure, when I perform that on stage. People have definitely cried during the show, and even after the show grown men have cried in my arms about that song. It's intense. But I'm honored that people feel in some way connected to me because we went through the same thing.”

Don't forget the tissues if you plan to be at the River Club Music Hall in Scituate on Friday, Feb. 16, for an evening with the folk-pop singer-songwriter. Folkie Sam Luke Chase, of Scituate, will open at 8 p.m.

Most of Longley's songs, of course, do not dampen the eyes. The upbeat “Outta My Head,” gently guitar- and drum-driven behind Longley's crystal clear vocals, is a toe-tapper that appears on her first CD released on the Sugar Hill label. That 11-track, self-titled album hit the market in 2015 and preceded 2016's 10-song “Weightless” LP.

Longley has built a solid fan following off her five full-length recordings, one six-song EP, and a busy tour schedule that has her driving her minivan from gig to gig, in the east and west, north and south.

A native of Chester County, Pa., Longley studied four years at Berklee and earned a bachelor's degree in songwriting.

“As a songwriting major, my goal was to go into that school and learn how to write songs that could sustain a career,” Longley said, “and I felt they gave me as many tools as they possibly could. I hope I can live up to the tools they gave me.”

She appears to be. Longley has won several prestigious songwriting competitions, and singer John Mayer has described her music as “gorgeous, just gorgeous.” Her voice has been compared to that of Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, Nanci Griffith, and Sarah McLachlan. But, in the end, Longley's voice is all her own, which blends beautifully into her intimate songwriting.

Longley moved to New York City after her Berklee days, but finding a place to park her minivan was troublesome and she moved to Nashville in November 2011. “When I go home,” she said, “I'm not driving in circles for hours, looking for a parking spot.”

When not touring, or writing on her own, she participates in co-writing sessions twice a day, every day, with other Nashville-based songwriters.

“It's common in Nashville,” Longley said. “People co-write all the time. It's a way of making more music than you could alone. It's part of the culture and really cool to have so many songs at the end of a week. And while I'm not necessarily writing for me in those sessions, it has fueled my writing for myself so when I get home, I'll have fresh ideas that are really authentic to what I do.”

Longley, who wrote four of the songs on “Weightless” and co-wrote the other six, said she's not ready to begin her next album.

“I'm writing a lot,” she said, “but I'm not in a rush to put out a record until I have the songs that I'm passionate about, songs that I'm dying to release. I don't want to put out music to survive. I want to put out music that I'm really, really proud of.”